


Strangers When We Meet

by Bookish_Moose



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:52:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookish_Moose/pseuds/Bookish_Moose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is familiar territory and maybe she prefers a familiar enemy to a stranger, tonight.</p><p>Warden Alistair and Morrigan are reunited at Skyhold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers When We Meet

Skyhold is quiet at night, far quieter than the Orlesian courts to which Morrigan has become accustomed.  She is newly arrived at the Keep and yet she finds it alive with the ghosts of her past.  Ghosts she has thought long since buried: the temple smoldering on a nearby peak, the bard in the tower with her ravens, the bastard Warden stalking the parapets, and, in the valley below beneath the snow, Haven.  Had she her druthers, she would not be here, but this is where she is needed. 

She ghosts fingers through Kieran’s hair.  His breathing is gentle and even as he sleeps and she pulls the blanket up over his shoulder. 

Morrigan envies her son his easy slumber.  It has been weeks since she has gotten a full night’s rest.  Certainly since the ball at Halamshiral, she thinks, perhaps longer yet.  Something is brewing in the Arbor Wilds and she fears what it will bring.  More than that, though, she worries for Kieran.  The life she has made for her son is rough-hewn but delicate and now there are darkspawn and old gods and, perhaps worst of all, his father tugging at the edges.  The last of these is the reason she does not sleep tonight. 

Standing, she tucks the blanket under her son’s chin, smoothing away the wrinkles across his chest.  He will sleep until she returns.   

The mountain air outside is cool.  It creeps into their room through small cracks between the stones and Morrigan wraps her heavy travelling cloak around herself.  The door clicks softly as it latches behind her.  Sighing, she leans her head against it.  This is ill-advised, but she must go. 

 _He’s changed you_. 

Lies, as though he knows who she is.  As though he knew her then well enough to judge the difference even if he did. 

He, at least, is the same as ever.  Presumptuous, aggravating, childish.  It bothers her less than she remembers, though, for there is something somber lurking beneath.  Perhaps one of them has changed, after all.  She cannot yet say which. 

The darkness hides her as she slips into the courtyard, though a quick glance around tells her she need not bother.  The yard is deserted.  Warm yellow light filters from the tavern windows, but Morrigan avoids the long swaths of grass it illuminates.  Briefly she considers changing her form.  A cat, perhaps?  But she pushes the thought aside.  Her blood is already restless.  Shifting will make it worse, will make her giddy and stupid and she can manage to remain unseen without it.  Whatever wits remain to her she will need. 

She crosses the yard.

Her footfalls are nearly silent on the steps to the battlements, but he hears her anyway.

“Morrigan.”  He doesn’t turn to face her. 

Surprised, she pauses, then paces to where he leans looking out over the mountains.  “Alistair.”

The scarred remnants of the breach loom large overhead, closed for now but still vexed.  It is hard to ignore at night like this, green and blue light bouncing off the snow, bright enough that Morrigan cannot make out the stars.  Dropping the hood of her cloak, she leans next to him on her elbows.

She glances over at Alistair.  He looks sickly in this lighting, but the dark smudges beneath his eyes make her wonder whether it is more than that.  There are creases at the corners of his eyes that make it hard to deny how much time has passed. 

“Are you going to tell me why you’re here or am I supposed to guess?”

“You are welcome to try,” she says.  She almost leaves it there, taunting, but she does not.  “I do not rightly know myself.”

Alistair scoffs, the sound bitter and harsh.  “Where’s the boy?”

“Kieran,” she corrects, “is sleeping.”

Straightening, Alistair turns and crosses his arms across his chest, leaning back against the stone.  “I wasn’t sure he did that.”

“How many times must I tell you, Alistair.  He is a perfectly normal boy.”  Morrigan feels her lip curl.  This was a mistake, coming here.  Whatever she thought she might find, he will not provide.  She braces herself for the inevitable conflict, slipping into her anger like an old glove, but it does not come.  Instead, his face softens.

“I know.  It’s just, I don’t know, _weird_.”

“’Tis good to see the years have not diminished your eloquence,” she snaps. 

Alistair sighs, ignoring the barb.

“Seeing him here, an actual boy.  I never expected to.” 

“Surely you didn’t truly expect him to be a monster.” Morrigan quirks an eyebrow and he continues.   

“Maybe not, but I never thought about him being a person, either.”  He looks away, rubs the back of his neck.  “Look, we cheated.  Being a Grey Warden, it’s about sacrifice.  We all accept that when we join the order.  It’s a Grey Warden’s duty to die to stop the Blight.”

“Yet you did not die.”

“No,” he says, “I didn’t.  A lot of good men and women did, but not me.  It’s a hard thing to hide, not being dead.  There were…questions when we rejoined the Wardens.  Neither of us said anything about the ritual, of course, but they knew something had to have happened.  I’m sure you wouldn’t know, but people aren’t very friendly when they think you’re hiding something that can save their lives.”

“You may find it hard to believe, Alistair, but I am not so inexperienced with people as I once was.” 

“No, I suppose you’re not, are you?” There is an odd look in his eyes, one that Morrigan cannot place.  A gust of cold wind swirls around them and she pulls her cloak tighter.  Alistair in his high-necked tabard and leathers seems unaffected.  “Anyway, it’s hard not to regret something like that.  Not when you escaped something people you care about died for.”

His words are sincere and open, more so than she expects from him.  In the old days, loathe as she is to think of them as such, they would not have been so.  He would have sniped at her and she at him and before long they would have been at each other’s throats. 

Morrigan’s eyes flit to his Adam’s apple, the lines of taut muscle on either side, the roughness of his beard above.

“There is no purpose in regret,” she says.  “What’s done is done.”

Alistair’s eyebrows pinch and his voice hardens.  “You think I want to feel this way?  It isn’t like I can help it.”

“You may, if you stop expecting yourself to be anything but human.  You cannot be other than what you are and you would be foolish to try.”

“What does that even mean?” Alistair says.  

“’Tis in our nature to protect ourselves.  No one else will.” 

“Being a Grey Warden means being more than that.”

“An impossible standard.”  For as long as she has been in polite society, Morrigan will never understand this tendency to deny the basic truths of human existence.  “Did you know what would be required of you when you became a Grey Warden?”

“Of course, we all do. Grey Wardens sacrifice-”

“Do not lie to yourself, Alistair.  If I recall, your Duncan told you nothing of how an archdemon is slain.”

He shakes his head and she can see the denial in his eyes.  “The particulars don’t matter.  We know we’re agreeing to sacrifice ourselves to end the Blight before we’re recruited.”

“Accepting that one _might_ die to accomplish a task is not accepting that one _must_ die.  If you had done the latter, you would not have agreed to my ritual.”

“That’s-“ Alistair sighs, shrinks before her eyes.  “If that’s true, then everything the other Wardens have said about me is right.  I don’t know if I can live with that.”

“’Tis strange.  What has been a source of such guilt to you for so long has been to me simply a little boy.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“Truthfully, I am surprised you came to see him today.”  She had not expected to see him when she heard that he was at Skyhold.

He shrugs.  “I would’ve wanted my father to do the same.”

Morrigan has never wondered about her father, never given him thought beyond the fact that he must have existed, once, but the same is not true for Alistair.  Nor, she knows, for Kieran.  He does not mention his father often, but…  “He asks after you, sometimes.”

“And what do you tell him?”

“Just as I said: that his father was a good man.  Do you think so little of me that you would expect otherwise?”

That earns her a laugh, loud and bitter as everything else about him.  “Honestly, Morrigan?  Yes.”

His admission hurts more than she expects.  She tries to blink away the unexpected emotion.

“I bear no ill will towards you, Alistair.”

“You could have fooled me.”

Morrigan clicks her tongue against the inside of her teeth.  “’Twas not that I disliked you so much as I thought you foolish to trust another with your own fate.  Growing up with a mother such as mine, I learned to trust no one but myself.  I could not respect choosing to give up your autonomy and entrusting your task to someone you scarcely knew.”

“Yes, well, that’s what I do.  Follow orders.”

“Not anymore,” she says.  “I know what you’ve asked of the Inquisitor.  It is…”

“Stupid?”

She laughs, just a bit.  “Noble, I would have said, but that will do just as well.”

“It isn’t noble.  It just needs to be done.”

Stepping closer to him, Morrigan smirks.

“As I told Kieran, you are a good man.  Stupid, perhaps, but good.  While ‘tis not a trait I appreciate overly much, he does.”  She hesitates, not certain whether to say the words that come to mind next.  Never has she been one to hold her tongue, so she takes the chance.  “He takes after you, you know.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see the resemblance.”

His gaze skirts the lines of her face and a shiver runs down Morrigan’s spine.  She wets her lips.

“Something around the mouth.  A kind heart.”  Alistair scoffs at her words, shakes his head, but his eyes are soft.  “A fondness for terrible jokes that I am certain was not my doing.”

“Now that does sound like me.” 

There it is again, that edge.  Morrigan was wrong, she realizes.  He is changed, very much so.  Where once he was idealistic and naive, he is now bitter and jaded and tired.  And close, closer than she realized.  Surprised, she flushes warm along her neck, swallows. 

“Alistair?”  Her voice is a whisper.  The stone wall is cold on her back and her skin tingles.

“You might not think so, Morrigan, but you have changed.” 

His body presses closer, a hand finding her waist through the wool cloak.  Unexpected, something rises in her chest, something needy and wanting and her breath catches. 

His body is so warm even through the bare bones of his armor, and she notices this first, notices the warmth before the press of his lips on hers.  Has it been so long since she has opened herself up like this that the solidity of him leaves her breathless more than the slick touch of his tongue?  It seems it has, for her hands tremble when she curls them around the back of his neck and pulls him close. 

It is against her nature to lie outright, so she must confess she has wondered what this would be like.  Especially in the long, lonely nights before Kieran was born, when the memory was still fresh, she wondered.  Although she cannot say she remembers their night together fondly, beyond that it gave her Kieran, she does think on it.  He did not kiss her then.  He scarcely touched her, as though her skin would sully him forever.  Perhaps it had. 

He kisses her now.

Confident and steady, his lips tug at hers.  A hint of teeth and she gasps, unsure whether it is the boldness or the hard pressure that knots desire deep in her belly.  Either way, she pulls him closer, slides her tongue against his, and Alistair crowds her backwards until she is wedged solidly between him and the stone wall.   She presses back against him, unwilling to be manhandled, craving the struggle.  One of his thighs slips between hers and he pins her in place with his hips.  She fists the soft hair at the back of his neck, kisses him harder. 

Her breath is fast and shallow, little more than shuddering gasps, now, and her head is muzzy.  He has scarce done more than kiss her and already she is embarrassingly undone.  A soft, keening noise escapes her and she can feel the scrape of his poorly-shaven beard as he smirks. 

Between her legs, she aches.  Her skin tingles where his fingers stroke beneath the cloak, callused and sure.  His tongue drags along her own, the taste of him oddly familiar, even after all these years, even though they have never truly, properly kissed until now.  Every touch winds the coiling in her chest tighter, pulls her closer to him. 

This is absurd, she thinks, even as she knots his fingers in his hair.

Finally, Alistair pulls away, resting his forehead against hers.

“This is not why I came here,” she murmurs, their lips close enough that they brush as she speaks. 

Alistair’s thumbs trace the line of her jaw.  “Why, then?”

She has no answer for him.

This time it is she who tugs his mouth to hers, catches his lips between her own.  They carry on like this, kissing like teenagers, until his tongue is in her mouth and his hands have worked their way under her cloak, plying the softness of her hips.  There is more for him to find purchase on there than there once was and she is again reminded that she is no longer a girl of barely twenty.  One of his thighs is between hers still, thick and solid, and she cannot help but grind down against it as she clings to him. 

Alistair’s touch is firm and sure and he skims his hands down her back with such certainty.  Finally, he pulls back, their mingled breath fogging in the air between them.

“It’s a bit cold, isn’t it?  Do you want to go inside?” Alistair glances over his shoulder and gestures.  “My quarters are just there.”

She nods and follows him to the door.

The room is spartan, more bare even than her own, but she scarcely has time to register more than that before Alistair’s hands are on her once more.  Last time, her own touch was hesitant.  His had been positively tremulous.  Now, though… 

He palms one of her breasts through her cloak and kneads it deftly as he handles his sword.  The nipple peaks and she arches into his touch with a small gasp.  Humming against her skin, he suckles at the pulse point under her jaw and she is uncertain whether she is more affected by the slick pressure of his tongue on her skin or the boldness of it all.  Either way, her heart pounds a fierce rhythm that thrums hard between her legs and she _wants_ this. 

 _Is_ this why she’s come to him?  It is a startling idea.  She does not look back on that night fondly, but it has created a bond between them, whether Morrigan likes it or not.  He is familiar territory and maybe she prefers a familiar enemy to a stranger, tonight. 

She slides her fingers under his belt, rubbing the well-worn leather between them before unfastening the buckle.  It falls to the floor, but she hardly notices the noise.  One of Alistair’s hands splays across the back of her skull, cradling it, pulling her to him and he kisses her again.  They did not do this last time, the kissing.  Maybe it is that, the times over the last decade she has wondered what it would have been like, maybe that she can scarcely remember the last time someone touched her like this, all tender restraint and need and _tongue_ and _teeth_ , but she will let him do this all night if he wants.

Alistair has other plans, it seems, for he clutches at her hips and walks her backwards a few steps towards the bed.  He slips under her cloak and the touch of his fingers against her back strokes the tangle of desire that has taken root in her belly. 

She needs more.

Without the breastplate, his tabard should be easy enough to remove, but she fumbles with the unfamiliar garment.  Pulling her mouth from his, she grits her teeth.

“Here,” Alistair says.  “Just, just let me.”

Morrigan glares, but acquiesces.  The metal and cloth, woven together, echo on the stone and she bats his hands away from his woolen underpadding.  This, at least, she can do herself.  It unlaces easily and she runs her fingers over the freshly bared skin.  Alistair leans into her touch and she wonders whether how long it has been since he was touched by another. 

She pushes the shirt over his head and his linen undershirt along with it.  He is broader than he was before, solid and firm, and new freckles dot his shoulders.  It is the body of a man accustomed to labor as well as soldiering and she wonders whether his life is as different now as hers is.  He has hardened as she has softened and perhaps now they may meet in the middle, at least for tonight.

Following her lead, Alistair traces the tendons on the side of her neck down to the clasp holding her cloak.  He unlatches it, drops the wool beside his own armor, and his eyes spark.

“I’d wondered…”  He fingers the drape of her shirt where it falls across her ribs.  “It’s not the exact same one from before, is it?”

She shrugs.  “Bits and pieces, perhaps.”

Circling her waist, he draws her to him and kisses her again.  His hands roam her back and she wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him even closer.  One of his hands ventures lower and cups the curve of her ass through her skirt. There is something familiar in the taste of him, the smell that tugs at Morrigan’s chest and leaves her breathless.  Beneath the laces of his leathers, he is hard and she rolls her hips against him, desperate for the pressure. 

Behind her, she feels him tugging at her shirt.  When it does not fall away, she laughs and reaches back to help him.  A few quick flicks of her fingers and she is bare.  Alistair bends, cradles her body between his hands and mouth, and traces one of her nipples with his tongue.  The tug makes her knees weak and she pulls him down to the bed with her. 

His weight falls heavy across her lap and she tugs his head back to her breast.  He kneads the other, though it barely fills his hand.  Alistair does not seem to mind, plucking at one nipple as he swirls his tongue around the other.  Morrigan sighs and lets herself settle back into the mattress. 

She has been tense since she left her rooms, but the stiffness seeps from her as Alistair draws his hands down her sides.  His thumbs press into the soft flesh at the band of her skirt, rubbing gentle circles into her flushed skin and he drags the leather down her hips in one swift move.  The sudden bareness is unexpected and her she catches Alistair’s eyes with her own.  They are wide, pupils dark, and he holds her gaze as he scrapes his teeth along the ridge of her hip.  Heat flares within her, licking at her spine, and she combs her fingers through his hair.  There is something strangely tender in his eyes and that, even more than the swirl of his tongue, makes her chest clench with need. 

Taking her waist in his hands, Alistair pulls her down the bed and kneels between her spread knees.  His thumbs find the juncture of her legs and her torso, press along the taut ligaments there and she shudders, laying a hand over his. 

“Alistair,” she says.  “You needn’t-“

“Just let me.” 

She shakes her head.  This is intimate, she thinks, more so than she is prepared for. 

He blushes, then.  “I…last time you didn’t-that is-“

“I do not want you to feel as if you must-“

“I don’t.”  He squeezes her thighs, looks away from her.  “If we’re being honest, and I hope we are, because I am and if you aren’t I’m going to be really embarrassed, but I kind of like doing it.”

Morrigan quirks a brow at him.  It should not surprise her, she supposes.  Never…never has she had a man…  Her brain does not supply the words, but the though makes heat bloom between the wings of her hips.  She licks her lips.

He draws his hands back down to her knees. “If you don’t want me to-“

“No,” she interrupts.  “I am…not opposed.”

“A resounding endorsement.”

She clasps a hand around his wrist, slides the other into his hair and pulls him towards her. 

“That’s better,” he says.

He smirks, and there is a part of her that wants to wipe it from his lips, but then…  The muscles in her stomach tense as he purses her lips and blows a steady stream of air over her.  Her heart pounds, whether from nerves or anticipation she cannot say, but she feels it everywhere, a throbbing that beats a heady tattoo in her veins.  She is exposed to him, slick already, and the distance between them, between her skin and his mouth, is tangible.  It makes her pulse hammer and she angles her hips towards him. 

This will change things.  This, more than anything that has come before. 

This is _choice_ , hers and his both.

Alistair licks his lips, not breaking eye contact, and Morrigan cannot help but watch him, eyes wide.  Although it is cold, the prickle that flashes over her skin and erupts into gooseflesh has nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the way his thumbs skim along her outer thighs, stroking closer to where she aches for him with each pass. 

A whimper, embarrassing and unintended, slips from her as he leans high and kisses the skin over her hip.  His fingertips inch up the inside of her thigh, tortuously, and he traces the place where her legs meet her body.  Her eyes fall shut, breath hitching as he gets closer to where she lies open, closer, closer until _finally_ he tongues the length of her slit, unexpected and intevitable and perfect.

Morrigan lets her head fall backwards onto the bed.  Lets, as if she has any control over it anymore.  He licks another time, and again, more firmly now, and she cannot help rolling her hips to meet him.  Encouraged, he hums against her and sucks.  Her back arches.  She wraps her legs around his shoulders, nudging him closer with a foot on his back and a fist in his hair.  The friction of his tongue snakes up her back, takes root in her belly and twists.  It curls and coils as he works his mouth over her and her back arches and she clutches at him, panting and a whine rises in her chest and-

He stops. 

He sits back on his haunches and wipes a hand across his mouth. 

“What is the meaning of this?” she manages. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, lifting an eyebrow, “were you enjoying yourself?”

There is a sudden flash of terror, an instinct borne of long years in the Wilds, of the feeling of an animal’s shell around her soul, that tells her to run, but she quashes it.  Many years at court have left her practiced in such matters.  Surely he would not open her up in this way only to reject her.  Even in the past, she cannot imagine him, imagine _Alistair_ cruel enough to do such a thing.

She steels herself, jabs the muscled expanse below his collar bone with her foot and he falls backwards.  For a moment, she fears he will lose his balance, but he catches himself.

“You are not finished.”  It is not a question, but a command and his tiny inhalation does not go unnoticed.  Nor does the restless way he shifts his hips, presses the heel of his hand against the hardness there. 

He is desperate, she realizes, hard and aching and throbbing in his leathers, and the thought is electric.  She wants to keep him that way, make him beg while she takes her fill of him, test the limits of his control.  Catching his gaze, she shakes her head, a nearly imperceptible gesture, but sufficient, for his mouth slackens and his hand falls away.

There is a pause, then, a quiet moment before he takes her hips in hand and drags her to the edge of the bed. 

The stone floor must be hard on his knees, she thinks, but when he curls her body into his and kisses her, she no longer cares.  The taste of her is strong on his lips, but his tongue is slick and warm and she finds she does not mind it so. 

She kisses him back, open-mouthed and lazy, until he drags his lips down the column of her throat and takes the peaked tip of one of her breasts into his mouth.  The soft, gentle pressure, the tug of his teeth and the swirl of his tongue are a heady combination and Morrigan slides her fingers back into his hair to draw him closer.  His other hand finds the slick between her folds and spreads it.  He slides two fingers up either side of her cunt, outside the lips, then squeezes them together, trapping her swollen clit between them.  She gasps, arches into him and he repeats the motion.  Restless, needy, she wraps her leg around his back and rolls her hips. 

The best of it is when he catches her gaze, looking up at her as he tongues at her breast.  Her chest heaves, now, with each breath and she presses her nose into his hair.  There is a comfort in his bulk, his solidity, and she anchors herself on him. 

The press of his finger into her, knuckle deep, is a surprise and she tenses.  Alistair spreads a hand across her stomach, easing her down onto the bed and she goes without argument.  Her legs tangle around his waist and she holds her breath, waiting for what she knows is coming.   

Adding a second finger to the first, he lowers his mouth to her, hovering just above her skin, tongue hot and poised.  Impatient, her hips twist desperately.  Her cunt is swollen, overheated, and she is sore with want.  When he finally lays his mouth on her, Alistair wastes no time, sucking her clit between his lips and curling his fingers within her.  Her body jerks in response, then settles and she needs him closer, needs more pressure and friction and heat.  She pulls him flush against her with her calf, guiding his tongue with her hips and leg. 

The flat of his tongue strokes against her, soft and rapid and slick.  Her body is taut, the muscles in her stomach, her legs quiver and her fingers knot in the thin comforter on the bed.  Her clit is aflame, sensitive and swollen and she teeters on the edge, desperate for something to push her over. 

She slips her hand behind Alistair’s neck, pulling him closer, and he slants his mouth over her at a new angle and groans.  The vibration sparks within her.  She grinds herself against him, holding his head steady beneath her as she moves.  Adding a third finger, he presses deep, curling and stroking while he groans and growls into her flesh.  

Morrigan lifts up on her elbow, frowning in concentration.  She is so close, her body so tight it is beginning to ache.  Movement at the end of the bed catches her attention and she realizes that Alistair is squirming himself, hips thrusting vainly into the air as his hands work at her.  His need pushes her over the edge and the knot of tension tangled around her spine flashes over her.  She stills against him with a gasp and he slows his movements, wringing the most out of her climax until she pushes him away.

Boneless, she falls back on the bed and brushes her sweat slicked bangs from her eyes. 

Alistair lies next to her, the mattress sagging under his weight and Morrigan rolls toward him, settling into the crook of her arm before she is even aware of doing it. 

“It seems I missed an opportunity all those years ago,” she sighs.

Alistair laughs softly.  “I’m not sure I could have done that last time.”

Morrigan shrugs.  “I would not have let you.”

She rolls onto her side and props her head on her elbow, looking down at him.  Lying back like this, he looks years younger, more like the young Grey Warden she first met.  Despite what he has just done to her, what they have just shared, there is a part of her that can scarce believe it.  He is much changed, as, she is willing to admit now, is she.  Could things have been different, had she been softer, more understanding, had he been more assertive?  She doubts it, for what could she have been but what she was?  What else could he have been?

What he is now, though, is desperate.  The hard bulge in his trousers, straining against his laces, draws her attention and she sits up, tucking one of her legs beneath her.  His skin is as slick as hers and her fingers slide easily over the expanse of his chest, swirling lower through the sparse, curling hair.  She traces the line of it to the band of his trousers and slips a finger beneath. 

His eyes are wide now, fixed not on her hand, but her face, waiting. 

Rather than untying his laces, Morrigan lays her hand over the bulge of his cock and presses the heel of it into the hardness.  Even through the leather she can feel the throb of blood in his heated flesh.  It awakens something in her again, though it is not urgent yet.   

Alistair moans, an unabashed, uninhibited moan that makes her cunt clench despite the climates from which she is still reeling.  He thrusts his hips at her but, rather than taking him in hand, Morrigan skirts her fingertips over the taut leather, scratching gently.

She can turn herself to a bird, a bear, a dragon, but to turn him to this is a power more satisfying than any she has known.

She is hungry for more.

Varying the pressure, teasing, taunting, she touches him until he writhes, hands fisting in the sheets.  The outline of his cock is clearly visible now and she traces it with her fingers.  As he rolls his hips, the head of it rubs against the soft leather of his trousers.  The muscles of his stomach are tense and she wonders if he is getting close.  From the way he gasps, she thinks he must be.  She frees him from the confines of his laces, letting his cock spring free into the air.  It bobs heavy above his stomach, slender and long enough to suit.  More than that, though, what draws her attention, makes her shift her own hips, is the taut, swollen head, already weeping a trail of thin fluid down to his belly. 

Much as she loves the agony of his need, she cannot help taking him in hand and swiping her thumb across him.  Her own eyes are as wide as his now and, without a thought, she pushes up onto her knees and rises over him.

“Yes,” he whispers, so softly she almost thinks she has imagined it until he says it again and again, until she has the tip of him inside her, his slick mingling with hers.  She sinks down on him until he is fully sheathed.  Surrounding him, her walls still clench with the aftershocks of her first climax, but already she can feel another building.  He thrusts up into her, eyes fixed on her face. 

He is testing her, testing the limits of how far she will let him take this, how much control she is willing to relinquish.  Laying a hand atop his chest, she arches an eyebrow and leans forward so that her weight is supported.

Slowly, she rocks backwards, pushing him further into her, then forward again.  The curve of his cock makes its head brush up against something inside of her that leaves her breathless, coils the knot within her tighter and licks hot need up her spine.  His fingers stroked it before, but the blunt tip of his cock is better, matched as it is by the fullness of him within her.

She leans forward and kisses him as she rocks against him.  His hands stroke her bare shoulders, rubbing circles into her skin, feeling the shapes of the sharp bones beneath.  He slides a hand up her spine to the base of her neck and unfastens her hair with more ease than he has anything else she has worn this evening.  It tumbles down, reaching past her nipples and, though she expects him to thread his fingers through it, he returns to her neck. 

His touch is gentle, but practiced and he plies the tight muscles with more skill than Morrigan expects.  She supposes she should no longer be surprised-she has seen evidence enough that Alistair has become a skilled, confident lover with the Wardens-but she still has difficulty prying the fumbling virgin from her mind. Her head lolls to the side, face pressed into the crook of her neck as he works at a stiff tendon.  The act itself is not a sexual one, but the tenderness, its unnecessariness has her gasping all the same.  His fingers rest, finally, and she kisses him, slow and open mouthed, more tongue than kiss, truth be told. 

When she pulls back, Alistair’s gaze is cool and level.  He is still hard within her, but the urgency has receded.  Morrigan half expects him to flip her onto her back and take her, but he does not, instead shifting his hips beneath her, urging her on. 

Submission, still, but a different sort than before. Willing, calculated.  It is strange, but she does not find it off-putting as she once might have. 

She rolls her hips again, tightens herself around him.  Again, and this time he meets her thrust with one of his own and his cock presses deep.  Alistair’s hands ghost across the flat of her stomach, along her thighs.  His thumb finds her cunt, circles his cock where it slides into her.  Even roughened and callused as it is, the digit slips messily, effortlessly across her flesh.  He presses against her clit, then, firm and steady.  The climax that eluded her before comes roaring back, flaring to life somewhere deep between where his cock and his finger work. 

Driving down on him hard, she grinds into his cock in short, barely-there thrusts.  Morrigan closes her eyes, frowns, and moves faster against him.  She can feel herself tightening, not just her cunt, but her whole body, tightening, tightening. 

Alistair himself barely moves.  She feels his chest heaving beneath her hand, feels his ribcage rise and fall between her knees. 

He draws a sharp breath, tenses beneath her.  His thumb rolls her clit frantically as his cock twitches inside her and she peaks, unexpected and inevitable all at once.  Alistair stills, finally, but Morrigan grinds against him, riding out the last remnants of her orgasm, until finally she relaxes with a shudder. 

Leaning down, she kisses him again, languid and soft.  Her eyelids are heavy and his body is warm and welcoming.  Alistair’s arms circle her waist and he rolls them to their sides. 

When she opens her eyes again, rain is streaking the small latticed windows.  The sky beyond is dark.  Still night, then.  She sits up, Alistair’s arm sliding down her waist.  Slipping out of bed, she gropes in the darkness for her clothing.  Alistair stirs, rolls onto his back, but remains silent as Morrigan slips back into her skirt. 

“You don’t have to go, you know.”

She pauses, shirt hanging half-fastened around her neck. 

“I must return to Kieran,” she answers delicately.  It is the truth-she would not have him wake without her there-but more than that, she does not wish to give Alistair the wrong impression.  This…encounter has been far more pleasurable than she imagined it would be, but she does not wish to consider it more tonight. 

“Right,” Alistair says.  He props himself up on an elbow and Morrigan can feel his gaze on her through the dim moonlight.  “You could wait until the rain is gone, at least.”

She sits, tugging one boot on, then the other. 

“I have lingered long enough, Alistair.” 

“Right.”

Stooping, Morrigan gathers her cloak from the floor and pulls it over her head.  Her hair hangs unbound, still.  She is not so vain as to re-arrange it before she leaves. 

There is nothing to keep her here, now, but she lingers still at the door.  Alistair must sense her hesitation for he crosses the room in the span between a flash of lightning and the peal of thunder that follows. 

Even knowing as she does that it is unwise, she kisses him once more. 

“Perhaps,” she says when she pulls away, “when you return from Adamant, you might come by and meet him.”

Alistair’s posture, the feel of him changes, stiffens at the suggestion and she almost regrets having asked.  It was part of their arrangement, she knows, his anonymity.

“Would…would that be alright?” he asks, his words slow and measured.

Morrigan nods.  The situation will be a delicate one, but she has time to decide what to tell Kieran, if Alistair is still willing. 

“I think I’d like that.”

The knot of anxiety that has taken up residence in her stomach loosens, but does not dissipate fully.  She suspects it will remain for some time.  She has spent so long crafting this life she leads for herself and for her son, and in one night it is all undone.  Perhaps it is for the better.  Perhaps not.  Only time will tell. 

She thinks to kiss him once more but decides against it.  She has disrupted enough for tonight. 

Raising her hood, she opens the door, and steps out, disappearing into the dark rain.


End file.
